


Miles to Go Before I Sleep

by givemeunicorns



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, tagging to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 04:17:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2533874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/givemeunicorns/pseuds/givemeunicorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark thinks he can finish a war before it starts. Steve knows better, for him, the war never ended in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Miles to Go Before I Sleep

Steve knew she was there, lurking in the doorway, without even looking up.

Part of him was glad. It had been a dark couple of days for all of them. Barton had offered up a small spit of property he kept in the middle of no where. Steve didn't ask why he had it, or when he got it, but it had provided a good haven for them, in the aftermath of the Maximoff girl's vision.

“I don't know what you did to Stark out there, but he gone full blown sulk mode. With no Pepper and no Rhodey, he's going to be insufferable,” She sighed, dropping on his bed, while he toweled his face dry.

“Isn't he always,” Steve grumbled and caught her reflection in the mirror, ducking her head to hide her grin.

“Really, I thought you two would get along better, considering how you're both mouthy little shits,” she shrugged and Steve tucked the used towel onto the rack.

Part of him had thought so too, Steve had always liked Howard, despite his over the top personality. But there was something about Tony that rubbed him wrong. Every gaze his way, every word out of his mouth was a challenge, payback for an offense Steve didn't know he'd committed. Steve knew he wasn't the best at taking orders, knew he had too much fight in him even at the best of times. But, most times, he was smart enough to know when to listen to good advice. There were a lot of things, especially now, that were out of his depth, and he was surrounded by people who knew better how to deal with the problem. Steve knew he didn't know everything all the time. That seemed like something Stark couldn't deal with, that he couldn't deal with not knowing everything about everyone. He didn't deal with unknown factors. He couldn't stand not to be the smartest person in the room.

“Maybe,” he offered, grabbing his shirt off the dresser.

Natasha watched him appreciatively and nodded.

“So, how are you holding up?”

Steve's spine stiffened. He and Nat had been through a lot together in the last year. He trusted her. She was his friend. But the images that girl had flashed behind his eyes haunted him. He didn't know what Natasaha had seen, but this was the first time he'd seen her in a couple days. She had her own darkness to deal with. She didn't need his too.

He opened his mouth to lie. To tell her he was fine, that he was coping. But the words that came out weren't words he planned.

“What did she show you?” he asked softly, before he could stop himself.

She took a tight breath, leaning back on her hands. He could kick himself. He kept what he'd seen to himself, because there wasn't anyone he trusted with that. No one but Natasha. He didn't have the right to ask for that piece of her. He knew that. But part of him needed to know, part of him needed to be sure he wasn't alone, that he wasn't loosing his mind.

“I-i'm sorry, Natasha,” He stuttered running a hand through his hair, “It's not my business.”

“She showed me who I thought I was,” Nat blurted, “Who I could have been.”

She shook her head. Steve sat carefully on the bed next to her.

“She showed me things I thought I'd forgotten. Some of them real, some of them not.”

“Were you happy?”

She nodded silently, looking at her hands.

“I think so. But I also wasn't me, so I'm not sure it counts.”

Steve sighed, turning to look out the window. Clint was headed towards the woods with his bow slung across his back, his washed out yellow dog following on his heels. Natahsa's hand gripped his own, small and warm but strong and calloused. He turned his hand, squezzed her fingers.

“What did she show you?” she asked carefully.

Steve swallowed, the weight of the vision like a stone in his chest. Like drowning. Like freezing. Experience he knew.

“She showed me home,” he choked.

“Brooklyn?”

“No,” he sighed, standing. He needed to move, muscles jumping with the same, sharp, nervous energy he'd felt out in the yard, chopping wood. The need to do something, anything, “And yes. She showed me the life I could have had. Bucky alive and whole. Peggy.”

“Since I was young, I just wanted to be able to protect people. Back then, being small and sick, people expected you to just die. There was no disability, eugenics wasn't just a thing the Nazi's believed in. People like me were seen as a burden, yet my mom, Bucky, the Barnes, they took care of me, they loved me. But I felt like I had to do something, I had to pay it forward, to deserve it. Then Erskine came along and gave a chance, gave me a chance to help people, to be great. I would go fight the war, we'd save people. The war would end.Then I'd go home. I had Bucky. I had Peggy. I had a purpose. I thought I had everything I wanted.”

The tears were hot and Steve wondered when the last time he cried was. It happened sometimes, when he first came back, when he felt angry and frustrated. These were different, welling up from something in his soul he feared that he'd forgotten.

“But then I went into the ice. When I woke up, the said the war had ended. The world hand changed. I was alone. But the war didn't end, not really, not for me. Since the moment Erskine's serum entered my body, all I've done is fight. All I have done is be a soldier. I came home, but home wasn't here anymore. The people I loved, the people I fought for were gone. They took my best friend, right under my nose, and they tortured him and they made him a weapon, and now the monster is gone and he's trying to piece himself back together like Frankenstein's monster. I drug my other best friend into a war he had no business fighting and now he's on every government watch list from here to kingdom come, he's been labeled a danger. Maybe even to Stark's war machine. They took me and you and Fury and so many other good people and used us to do their dirty work, told us we were saving the world when we were really helping destroy it. I lost my chance at a life, a happy life, with a girl I loved, for nothing. The war never stopped for me.”

She watched him for a long time, looking out at the trees, before she stood. She knew what it was to hurt in silence, maybe that was why he could bare his soul to her. She understood.

“I'm old, Nat, I'm old and I'm tired,” he said, looking down at her. A young face with an old man's eyes, filled with a deep sort of sadness that spanned all his ninety sum years, even the ones he'd lost.

She leaned into his chest in slow degrees, slim arms wrapping around his waist, another around his shoulders and he crumpled, pulled her so tight into him that he was afraid he might hurt her. She held on any way.

“It's okay to want to stop Steve. It's okay to mourn," her voice little more than a breath against his neck. Solid. Real.  "Nothing lasts forever. Not even you.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
